Damage Control
by Min Daae
Summary: The Doctor, in trouble, in Cardiff. Jack gets involved. Therefore, so does Torchwood.


_Author's Note: This turned out weird and kind of disjointed and a little bit nonsensical, but I actually really like it, even with that. There was going to be more Doctor!Whump than there ended up being, it went its own way, dammit. Set in S2 at some point for Torchwood and some point between S3 and S4 for the Doctor, so obviously AU, but just for this one point of time. IT COULD HAVE HAPPENED._

* * *

"Ow," he said.

There was blood on his hands. An awful lot of blood on his hands. Where was that coming from? Oh yes. He glanced down his right side at his hip. There, that was where it was coming from. "Sir!" Someone was saying from a great distance. "You've been shot!"

"So I have," the Doctor said absently, "I liked these pants. Absolutely ruined."

Then his leg gave out and he slipped to the concrete sidewalk. People – humans, lovely humans, were crowding over him. A worried face slipped into his view and he informed them mildly, "This is why I hate guns. Really really hate guns. Guns stupid, bad. No guns."

This was definitely not good. "Someone call an ambulance!" Someone was yelling.

Oh, no. "Don't do that," he said, "Hospital bad. Bad, bad idea. Torchwood, call Torchwood-"

"Don't worry," said the man leaning over him soothingly, patting his shoulder. "The medics are on their way. You'll be fine."

"No," the Doctor said, more desperately, "No ambulance, call off the ambulance. Torchwood. Call Torchwood."

"You need to stay calm," the man said, his voice indeed low and soothing and soporific. The Doctor could feel his eyes drooping. Or maybe that was the blood loss. "You've been shot."

"I know, stupid," the Doctor said, but he could hear his voice slurring. "That's why hospital's a bad idea." As soon as the words were out, the Doctor realized how nonsensical they sounded. Too late, though. He could hear the sirens, and consciousness was deserting him fast.

A hospital. Great. Hopefully when they figured out that he wasn't exactly usual issue they'd just call Torchwood anyway. Hopefully.

He let unconsciousness take him, and wipe away the pain.

~.~

Doctor Jan (short for January, and he cursed his mother for it) Martin hated paperwork above most other things in the world. And he had a stack of it on his desk, three inches thick. So perhaps it was no wonder that his mood was a little poor.

Hence his snappish response when Clarisse, the nurse-in-training they were borrowing from the university, knocked on his door and said in a strangely thin voice, "Doctor? There's something you should probably – take a look at."

"It can wait," he said, sharply. "In case you hadn't noticed, I am doing other work at the moment. Close the door on your way out."

"Doctor, it's very strange," she said, not leaving. "We wanted your opinion on – what to do."

"I'm sure you can figure it out. Hasn't anyone in this place got a competent bone in their body?"

"There's a man in the ER," she said, a bit louder. "I'm sorry, sir, but he's got two hearts."

Jan stared at her in sheer disbelief for a long moment before he picked up his stethoscope, deserted his paperwork, and followed her.

The man, he learned on the walk to the emergency room, had been brought in with a shot just under his hip. The strangeness had started when they typed his blood to get a transfusion; he'd lost a lot to the wound. But his blood had looked like, in the words of the tech who'd typed it, nothing he'd seen before. No match, unfamiliar enzymes, still white and red blood cells, or what looked like them, but not – _quite. _

Jan sped up a little, almost unable to contain his eagerness. "And then?"

"Well – I was checking his pulse before surgery and there was something – odd about it, so after he seemed to be stable I checked again and – two heartbeats. One on either side of his chest. –right in here, doctor. Do you know…"

"I have a guess," Doctor Jan Martin said, cutting her off and staring at the prone figure still lying on the operating table, a thick white bandage over his hip covering what must have been the gunshot wound. He looked – ordinary. Young; he would have guessed twenty-something, maybe thirty-something. Brown hair, a faint smattering of freckles. Very normal, very human, for an "Alien," he said, finally, and the small cluster of people in the room stiffened. "If I had to give a diagnosis, that is an alien."

He stepped forward, listened to one heartbeat, then the other, then the other _again, _with a growing sense of awe. The others were all staring at him, and he straightened slowly.

"So what do we do?" The young surgeon across the table asked, staring at the alien with new wariness.

Jan Martin grinned, practically feeling his day looking up. "Keep it hidden," he said, "And study it. We could learn so much about medicine from it. And we will."

~.~

The Doctor woke up slowly to find himself staring a flashlight in the face.

"Can you get that out of my eyes, thanks?"

"Pupil contraction and dilation normal," said a clinical voice, and the light flicked off. Now he was just staring at a light in the ceiling that was even brighter.

"How about that one too?" He said, loudly, and finally tried to move.

It was then he realized that he was restrained. Strapped down. And that this wasn't a hospital room; it wasn't white, for one thing, and it smelled cold and damp. And musty. "A basement," he said, "You're joking, right?"

Hospitals. Bad idea. Hadn't he _said? _Stupid humans, never listening to him, never even-

A face popped into his field of vision with a look of intense curiosity that made the Doctor suddenly very nervous. He tried to talk fast, but he still felt groggy. "Torchwood. Do you hear me? Call Torchwood. They're authorized to deal with me. You're not, and you don't want to-"

The man's eyes nearly lit up with glee. "I'm sorry," he said, "Is that a threat? Jeff, I thought I told you to sedate it."

It. _It. _Well, that stung. And was very bad. Dehumanized things were a great deal easier for humans to hurt, and he knew that very well. Stupid gunshot. This was why he hated guns, they ended in things like being strapped to what felt like an operating table in a basement wearing nothing but his underwear.

He grinned back at the man, knowing that it was more than a little manic. "You'll know if I threaten you. And that wasn't it. No point, though, your sedatives won't work on me."

The man ignored him, glancing over his shoulder. "Bring me another dose." He looked back. "We'll see about that. There's so much science can learn from you. I won't let it go to waste."

"Ever thought of just asking?" The Doctor said irritably. "Works very well, good deal more polite-"

"Shut up," said Doctor Martin, and there was the needle again, plunging into his arm, wielded by a young man who was looking at him with fear. When he was hardly the dangerous one here at the moment, certainly not the one armed with an entire hospital of tools.

The second dose of sedative hit like a punch; if he'd been standing, the Doctor would have staggered. He lost track of things for a moment, and when he opened his eyes again he could see them prepping unmistakable tools.

"Now hold on," he said, panic beginning to rise, "You're not going to just-"

"I guess you weren't lying," said the Martin man, who was still hovering like a vulture over a carcass, and wasn't that a lovely comparison. "It must be that superior metabolism at work. Does local anesthetic work, then?"

The Doctor dearly hoped the others were listening. "No," he said.

Doctor Jan Martin tightened the straps on his wrists and shook his head. "Then we'll just have to find another way," he said. "I don't want to distress my team."

_Distress his team. _The Doctor could have laughed, bitterly. No one was looking for him. No one knew he was here, even 'here' as in Cardiff. It was fast looking like this quick flyby was going to turn into a long living hell. "And me?" He said, knowing his expression must be furious. "What about _my _distress?"

"You're only alien," said Jan Martin, and plunged another dose of sedative into his veins.

~.~

He found her quite by accident.

Jack'd only been out to get a drink, and then taken a walk, and then maybe gone home (briefly) with a very nice man he'd met on the street, but it wasn't that late, and then he turned a corner and there was the TARDIS. In an alleyway.

Jack blinked. Rubbed his forehead and then walked over and knocked on the door. "Doctor?"

It was impossible to tell if it was powered down or not, but it definitely wasn't sitting on the Rift. And the only other reason the Doctor would have to come here, most likely, was if there was trouble. And Jack would have smelled trouble.

He knocked again. "Doctor!"

Still no answer. Jack frowned at the door. Something felt wrong, and it wasn't the kind of wrong that was Doctor-style trouble. It was more the kind of wrong that made him feel vaguely like the TARDIS was unhappy about something, and that most likely meant that the Doctor was _in _trouble.

Which meant that it was time to go looking for him and rescue his skinny ass. Again.

With a sigh, he set off at a jog for Torchwood, already missing the very nice, very friendly young man he should have spent the night with.

~.~

The Doctor wasn't in Torchwood, nor, from the footage Jack checked inch by inch, had he come to call. There'd been no calls, nothing, not a word. Not even a whisper.

He paused late at night, running a hand through his hair. The Doctor was probably just inside the TARDIS and not answering the door. Still sulking about the Master, or Martha, or whatever. There was probably nothing to worry about.

But he couldn't shake the strange sense of unease.

~.~

It hurt. It hurt so much that he couldn't keep his hands from clenching, fingers digging savagely into his palms. He kept his eyes closed because it helped at least a little, and then he didn't feel nauseous from the ineffectual shots of sedative they kept trying.

It was a little harder to keep from yelling outright every time they started poking and prodding and drawing blood and testing reactions…

He was going to go mad if this went on too far. "Call. Torchwood," he told them through gritted teeth every day. No one had listened yet.

He could feel both his hearts hammering too hard, too fast, too violently. Something was going to give, and he just hoped – _fervently – _that it wouldn't be him.

His hands clenched harder and he gave in and yelled.

They shoved a gag in his mouth and he screamed through it instead.

~.~

Jack checked everything again the next morning, just in case, as his team trickled in. Nothing, still. He went back and knocked on the TARDIS door again, until someone passing by asked him what he was doing and he'd had to make up some stupid excuse for what he was doing and why there was a 1950s phone box in an alleyway. Antique collector. Bah.

He had the same results the next day, and the day after. On the third day of sitting around and waiting for something to happen, he gave up. Time for the search party of one approach. He reached for his coat with a sigh and stood up. "I'm going out," he announced, "Anything comes up, you know how to-"

The phone beeped, and he just beat Owen to it by scrambling, who looked perplexed. "Expecting someone, Captain?" said Gwen, wryly. He waved a hand to shush her.

"Torchwood Cardiff speaking."

"Hello?" The voice on the other end sounded crisp, clear, assured. "This is Spire Cardiff Hospital. We have something we think you should see."

Jack sighed, in ever so faint frustration. "We'll be right there," he said, and hung up. His personal project would have to wait. "All right," he said, raising his voice. "Better get moving. We've been summoned."

~.~

Whoever had called met them at the back door. Doctor Jan Martin, Jack read on his nameplate, and extended a hand. "I got your call. What's the problem?"

"It's not exactly an immediate threat," the doctor said, and immediately Jack felt his entire team groan silently. "We have – an alien in our basement."

"When did it turn up? Did someone trap it down there?"

The doctor smiled, faintly. "Not exactly. If you would come with me, I can tell you…"

"Not storytime," Jack said, snappishly. "We're here to handle whatever's causing you trouble and leave. That's all. No stories."

"It's important, trust me," the doctor said smoothly, opening a door labeled 'staff only.' "Here, take some gloves. You might want them. Now, this alien was actually – checked in about four days ago." Jack ignored the gloves, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Checked in?" Owen said. "As in – up to the front desk? Didn't someone notice?"

"Shut up, Owen," said Jack. "Go on."

"Well, not exactly the front desk. The emergency room. It'd been shot, somehow, and while my surgeons were treating the wound they noticed – blood typing noticed first, actually. That it wasn't like anything the lab'd seen before. No recognizable type, and some amazing properties…"

Jack didn't think he liked where this was going. "Four days ago, you said," he said. "Why didn't you call us?"

"We were running diagnostics at first," Doctor Jan Martin said, "And then we were just – doing a bit of exploring."

Jack felt his expression flatten. "Exploring."

"I think you'll find some of our findings extremely interesting," the doctor said, smiling, seemingly unaware of the sudden tension. He turned and opened the door marked stairs, and started down.

"I get a distinct sense of 'not good,'" said Owen, and nudged past Jack, starting down the stairs. "This feels like a regular…well. A regular something."

Jack let the rest of his team go first, and followed them down. Who knew what kind of thing they were keeping down here, what it might do to all the people above, especially if the good doctors had been poking at it for days –

Then he heard Gwen's voice from just ahead. "That's not an alien, what the hell are you-"

Jack turned the corner and took in the room – the team of people in white coats standing a good distance back, good, a computer running what looked like a sequencing program, a table in the center and-

The first thing Jack registered was relief at the sight of the Doctor's chest rising and falling. Still breathing, then, even if his eyes were closed, his face pale like death. Still alive. The Time Lord was completely restrained, his head flopped limply to the side and a gag tied between his teeth. The second thing that registered was anger. Lying apparently unconscious, almost completely naked, the livid line of recent stitches down his chest and abdomen was obvious. They'd cut him open, he thought dully, to poke around his insides.

"Jack."

_Doesn't work, _he remembered his friend saying cheerfully about sedative drugs. _I metabolize it too fast. Just feels like a bit of a punch and then I'm back up. _

Which meant…

"Jack?"

He finally realized that he'd just been standing staring at a prone alien for who knew how long, and his team was staring at him. His team and the doctors – whose necks he very much wanted to snap. Of course. They had no idea what – _who – _they were looking at. Clearly.

"Right then," he said, finally. "First things first. Next time you find an alien in your hospital? Call us _before _you start sticking things in him, _is that clear?_"

The doctor who'd led them down took a step toward him, seeming puzzled. "We were only running a few tests. For science. The things we've learned-"

Jack cut him off. "Is all of this…_research _on that computer over there?"

"Why yes," said the doctor – not the Doctor, the one Jack wanted to kill, "If you like you can take a look at it."

"Gwen," Jack said tightly. "Shoot the computer. Smash the hard drive." He could see Gwen hesitate and raised his voice, slightly. "Do it."

The stupid man in front of him yelped as the screen shattered and went black, followed by the rest of the monitor and the crunch of hardware under Gwen's shoes. "I don't understand," he yelped. "We were only-"

"Open your mouth again and I will not be able to keep myself from punching you," Jack said, taking a step closer to the table and starting to undo the restraints on the Doctor's wrists. The man grabbed his arm.

"No, you can't do that, it's dangerous-"

Jack elbowed him in the face, turned as he was still reeling, and smashed a fist into his nose at just the right angle to break it. The good doctor went down hard. He shook out his hand and narrowed his eyes at the others. "Anyone else got questions? No? Good."

He went back to the straps, ignoring the eyes of his team on his back. "Jack?" Tosh said, tentatively.

"I'll explain later," he said, shortly, and leaned down, pulled the gag out of his friend's mouth, shook the Doctor's shoulder carefully, frowning. Four days ago. He just hoped…

The Doctor's eyes fluttered open, and Jack heaved a sigh of relief that they seemed mostly sane, even if his pupils were dramatically dilated with pain. "Jack," he said, and managed a shadow of a grin. "This just keeps getting worse."

Jack shook his head and managed a smile back. "Just relax, Doc," he said, "I gotcha."

He could almost hear the others' brains ticking.

"Been hoping you'd show up," the Doctor said, his voice thick and slurry like his tongue was swollen. Jack arranged his arms carefully and started to lift the Time Lord carefully off the table.

"Now you're really starting to worry me," Jack quipped, and then winced as the Doctor made a small, quickly muffled noise that was plainly of pain. He turned to face his team, hoping that that would be the worst part, and doubting that it would. "All right," he said, to their blank and somewhat wary faces. "We'll be going now."

~.~

Other than plenty of staring by his teammates, the journey back was relatively uneventful. The Doctor didn't stir, and no one else seemed to want to ask any questions that might make the tic in Jack's jaw erupt into a proper temper.

Things started when they returned to the Hub.

Lying on his back completely motionless, the Doctor had apparently startled Owen by opening his eyes as he approached with a thermometer, grabbing his wrist, taking the instrument and throwing it across the medbay with a stern, "Don't you dare," before promptly flopping back into a state of apparent near death.

"I don't blame him," was Jack's response when Owen emerged making grumpy noises. But he did return to the Doctor's resting place in the medbay to keep an eye on his unconscious friend through the examination. He was not going to resort to restraints.

He hoped that this continued unconsciousness was a normal part of Time Lord healing, but when it came right down to it he really didn't know.

Jack made a personal note to go down to the hospital when he got the chance and strangle every one of the people he'd seen down in that basement.

Both his hearts were beating solidly, and if his breathing was shallow at least it was regular. Jack examined the stitches and frowned. "Full internal scan," he informed Tosh, who was hovering, mostly because she was hovering. "Make sure the bastards didn't do anything but look."

Further exploration revealed a bandage just below his hip that covered what looked like it had been a messy gunshot wound – no doubt the one that had gotten him committed in the first place. It seemed to have been tended, though, before they'd started cutting up the rest of him. At least they hadn't tried poking his brain with some kind of medical stick. He hoped.

Finally, Owen straightened, and announced to the room at large, "That's it. Seems everything's okay," and Jack realized that somehow, everyone had ended up in one room. "All right," he said, briskly, "Everybody out! Out, I'll take questions in the lobby." He lingered next to the Doctor for a few moments longer, then shook his head and resigned himself to waiting. And explaining. His favorite.

~.~

Jack tried to go by what the Doctor would have told them, but that would have amounted to 'nothing, really.' So he told them that their guest was a Time Lord, that next to nothing was known about his race, that yes, 'Doctor' was his name as far as Jack knew. Oh yes, and that he was a time traveler.

Gwen tensed. "Like Bilis."

Jack pictured the Doctor and Bilis, and coughed to cover his own wince. "No. Not…no. Not like that at all, it's a bit…yeah. No. He'd probably be offended by that comparison if he heard it."

"And he's harmless?" Owen ventured, and Jack laughed; couldn't help it, really.

"Oh, _no. _Not in the least, furthest thing from it. There are aliens out there that live in terror of the Doctor. But we're not – well." Jack grimaced. "He likes people. Humans. So far as I can tell, we're kind of his favorites. So we're good."

They were all staring at him now, and Jack nearly threw his hands up in the air and gave up, but there was a loud crash from the infirmary, and both he and Owen – followed by everyone else – were up and on the way before the second had lapsed.

Just as Jack had expected, the Doctor was on his feet, looking damnably groggy – though his eyes fixed just fine on Jack. "You," he said, and finished with, "Did not."

"I think you had better," Owen started, but the Doctor shot him a look that was Jack's 'don't be a moron I am talking' look, but about twelve times worse.

"If someone wants to be useful, tea would be nice – oh _ow – _Captain Jack Harkness, tell me you didn't-"

"I didn't," Jack said, peevishly. "Still alive. And in one piece. Mostly."

"Oh, good," the Doctor said, glanced around, and grinned. "—hullo, everyone came. Isn't this lovely."

And his eyes promptly rolled back in his head as his lanky form slipped toward the floor. Jack caught him with ease, and checked the stitches worriedly, but it seemed to be fine. If anything, better than an hour ago. That was a good sign, if the _fainting _was a bit less reassuring.

Owen was staring. Jack didn't really blame him, and said, ruefully, "Yes, that's going to be a problem from now on. Sedatives don't work, I'm not going to tie him down…not the best of patients." He brightened. "If we had the TARDIS-"

The Doctor opened one eye. "No."

"You're awake," Jack said, after he'd finished jumping.

"More or less. And no. She stays where she is."

"But-"

"No buts. I'm not taking her anywhere near Torchwood, even if they are your friends." The Doctor's gaze switched down to Owen, and he frowned. "-don't you lot keep any tea down here?"

Then he was out again.

Jack sighed. "She?" said Gwen carefully. "Who's she and what's a TARDIS?"

"'She' is the TARDIS," Jack said, "It's his – _she's _his spaceship. He calls her that, I don't know why. Maybe she is a – well, 'she.' I actually have no idea." He decided not to add that the ship seemed to be the Doctor's best friend, or that he talked to her and sometimes stroked her in vaguely uncomfortable ways when he wasn't thinking about it. His team was already watching him like he was insane anyway.

And here it came, the question he'd been oh so delicately stepping around. "Jack…how do you know him?" Gwen asked cautiously. Like he hadn't been thinking about it all this time and trying to work out how much to say and how much he absolutely could not say. "Does this have something to do with – you know. You disappearing?"

What popped into his head was _tactics for resisting interrogation, _probably number forty-three or something._ Answer only the question asked. _So, "yes," he said. They all stared at him. Owen was still hovering in the direction of a cabinet with tea in it with a very nearly priceless look of consternation on his face. Finally, it was Tosh who prompted, "And?"

Jack glanced at the unconscious Doctor, feeling distinctly cornered. And was briefly tempted to tell them to ask _him, _but that would have been pointless. He sighed. "Maybe we should have this conversation out of here," he said, mildly. "Owen, forget about the tea. I'll make it later."

Owen muttered something unintelligible and shoved his hands in his pockets. Jack pointed toward the door. "So how about it. Out."

He wasn't sure, in the end, how he managed to talk around the Master and the Year That Wasn't. Kept it to the basics – that he'd found out that his right kind of Doctor was in Cardiff and hadn't been able to say anything because of course the Doctor wouldn't stop for long. (Well, he didn't say that part. It would have come off too much like bitterness.)

Of course, he should have known his team better. "Did this have something to do with – Saxon, that whole business?" asked Ianto quietly, speaking up for the first time since they'd picked up the Doctor, and Jack twitched his shoulders uncomfortably.

"—yeah," he said, finally, "A bit." Well, more than a bit, it had everything to do with 'Saxon' but Jack did not really want to explain about the end of the universe and regeneration and insane Time Lords when they had one in the very next room. They were all staring at him, now, wanting more, and Jack shrugged. "That's all I'm going to say about it."

There was a long silence, and finally Tosh asked, "And what are we going to do about – him?"

Jack grimaced. "Try to keep him here until he's better. And then he'll leave, like usual. Probably won't be too long." He paused, and added, "And just – don't let him see what you're working on?"

"Why not?" asked Gwen. "If he's – you know, an alien, couldn't he help with some of the stuff we don't understand?"

"Yes," Jack said, grimly, "If he doesn't decide we shouldn't have it and erase it, anyway. Just…he's very good and he's very clever, and I would really rather not have him near the computers because I don't want to know what he'd do. Understood?"

~.~

The Doctor won Tosh over first.

He was on his feet, if wincing every couple steps, barely a day after they'd rescued him, and Jack found him sitting barefoot in a chair and talking a mile a minute about quantum something or other while Tosh sat and listened raptly, her studied expression in stark contrast to the Doctor's dramatic waving of hands. When he stopped abruptly and put a hand to his chest, grimacing, Jack watched as Tosh practically jumped up to help.

Damn.

Strangely enough, he got to Owen next. Owen hadn't seemed inclined to be too happy about having an injured alien wandering around, especially when he didn't act injured, but only three days into the Doctor's 'sick leave' Jack found him sitting on the table in the med-bay, Owen's stethoscope on his chest while the Doctor rambled about some obscure alien disease. The Doctor grinned abruptly, said something, and Owen actually laughed. Jack wondered if his warnings had fallen on deaf ears as he watched Owen fish something out of one of the drawers where they kept things found on dead bodies and show it to the Doctor, who held it up delicately, looking thoughtful.

And then there was Ianto. He found the Doctor making Ianto tea, and while Ianto looked a bit disgruntled, it wasn't really far from the expression he gave Jack most of the time. He'd walked in thinking to get some food and heard the Doctor saying, "So then he goes for his – well, gun, only it's a banana instead-"

Oh, good _god. _

The Doctor looked up, stopping, and beamed at him. "Hullo, Jack. Was just telling Mr. Jones some stories about the first time we met, remember?"

Jack took a deep breath through his nose, opened his mouth, and then turned on his heel and went. At least Ianto knew a bit more than the others. But really, what had he been _thinking _to bring the Doctor here, of all places?

Not thinking. He'd seen his friend in a bad situation and done the first thing he could think of.

He wondered briefly if he was jealous, and decided that he probably was, but that he had every right to be.

He went to his office and sulked.

Gwen walked in ten minutes later and sat down across from him, and he didn't look up. Finally, she leaned forward and said, "This morning I saw Tosh showing the Doctor around the computers. She never lets anyone touch the computers. This afternoon I saw Owen letting him poke around the medical equipment. And just now he and Ianto were having tea and I'm pretty sure Ianto was talking about Lisa." She paused. "Does this sort of thing always happen when he's around?"

Jack sighed. "Yes. Usually. He's…he does that to people."

"Not to you?"

"Yeah, to me too," Jack said, after a moment. He grimaced. "Made me a better person, damn him."

Gwen glanced down, then looked up. "I think you were wrong," she said, "I think he is dangerous to us. In a way."

"Yeah," Jack said, after a moment. "Just not in the way you expect."

There was a knock on the door, and Jack looked up. The Doctor was leaning against the doorframe, not smiling, with what Jack thought of as his 'concerned face' on. Gwen looked back and forth between them and stood up, rather abruptly. "I'll go," she said, and looked at Jack. "Take care."

The Doctor watched her leave before slipping inside himself and sitting down, watching Jack with too much compassion in his deep, dark eyes. "You have quite the team here," he said, after a few moments of silence. "You were right about them. They're good people. Worth staying for."

"Yep," Jack said. And left it at that. He watched the Doctor's brows furrow.

"Thank you," he said, after a moment. "One more day, I expect, and I'll be out of your hair. Never planned to stay here, anyway."

"Never plan to stay anywhere, do you?" said Jack, and couldn't keep the sharp note out of it. The Doctor gave him a glance, eyes narrowing.

"I thought you might be angry, but I'm afraid I'm not certain why."

Jack shrugged, and knew the gesture looked and was sullen, but couldn't stop himself. "Yeah, you wouldn't be."

"Enlighten me." It wasn't a question. It never was, with him. Jack took a deep breath.

"My team," he said, slowly. "Is…my team. Not yours. They're not your people and you can't make them your people."

The Doctor blinked, his eyes widening. "Of course not. I wasn't trying to-"

"That's just the problem, isn't it?" Jack said, tightly. "You don't try. You just do. You just do make people want to please you, to be your friend. And-"

"You know what I was talking about with each and every one of them?" The Doctor said, his voice, quiet as it was, nonetheless cutting through every word of Jack's. "You."

Jack blinked.

"Yes, you," the Doctor repeated, a bit more loudly. "That's all they wanted to talk about, was you, their leader, their Captain Jack. You have a very loyal bunch of people here, you know."

It was stupid, but the first thing Jack thought to say was "Owen shot me."

The Doctor frowned, a bit. "Yes, he told me. Feels awful about it, too – but that's not the point. They all wanted to know how I knew you, what you'd done, you you you. Don't worry," he added, quickly. "I didn't tell them even half. Obfuscated a lot, that's what I do. Obfuscate. But they did ask. That's what I wanted you to know. That you have a lovely, _lovely _bunch of people here, and they're happy to have you back. Selfishly, yeah, would be nice to have company. But I can see why you came back. After everything."

Jack hated, sometimes, how the Doctor seemed to know just what Jack wanted to hear, and said it, and it was all true anyway. He glanced down before one of the only people who could make him feel ashamed. The Doctor paused.

"Now, I hope you know," he added, sternly, "That Mr. Jones is quite besotted with you, and-"

"I know, I know," Jack said, suddenly feeling the urge to laugh. "He's a good man. And very-"

"Stop," the Doctor said, holding up a hand, "Just – stop. Good taste in tea, too – well, never mind." There it was, finally, that quick and infectious grin that made Jack's stomach turn over uncomfortably. "Anyway – thank you. Would have been bad to be stuck there forever. Well – anyway. I'll be going. Might want to go find Ianto, I think he wanted to talk to you…"

Jack stood up, quickly. "Wait, what are you," but the Doctor was already gone, and Jack could hear him breezing through the Hub humming "Greensleeves."

~.~

In the morning, the Doctor was gone.

The Hub seemed almost unnaturally quiet, everyone blinking a bit rapidly as though they'd come out of a dream quite suddenly. Jack watched Tosh go to the computers and tap idly through a few screens before she wandered away. Ianto had paused in making coffee and was staring into the distance. Owen was…Owen, and Gwen arrived looking thoughtful.

He hadn't left a note or anything. Jack wasn't surprised. He'd expected as much after the conversation last night; the Doctor never said anything unless he could run away afterwards.

"Jack," said Tosh, suddenly. "The Weevils are gone."

Jack almost smiled. "Gone home, most likely." He'd never mentioned the Weevils, never shown them to the Doctor. But of course, he'd found out anyway. Mostly, Jack was surprised he hadn't gotten a chewing out over it.

"Jack," Ianto called, suddenly, "You'd better see this."

He walked over, suddenly nervous, and stared at the note on the half-empty artifact shelves. Ianto read it aloud.

"_Dear Captain Jack. I'm not going to make any apologies for confiscating this stuff. Half of it was dangerous to you and the other half to the rest of the planet. Oh yes, and the weaponry, took that too. I also took the liberty of reorganizing your boxes, you got the categorization all wrong. Don't do anything stupid. Oh, and P.S., you might consider contacting Martha Jones? Will provide references if necessary." _

Jack stared at the boxes. Stared at the note. And sighed.

His team was staring. He remembered an old friend.

"_Fantastic,_" he said.


End file.
